


Your Boy is Like a Memory

by thenewradical



Category: The Dalemark Quartet - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-19
Updated: 2007-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:22:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1638710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenewradical/pseuds/thenewradical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of her fourth summer, Maewen can't help but wonder if Mitt will appear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Boy is Like a Memory

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to my beta, Curtana, for making this story flow much better than it did originally. The title is shamelessly stolen from the Stars song "Look Up".
> 
> Written for Temaris

 

 

At fourteen, Maewen spent her summer wandering around Tannoreth Palace. She would read in the courtyard before the tourists streamed in, eat lunch in her room while looking out at the mountains, and went down to the ballroom to look at portraits with the art students. One of the girls who was there almost everyday noticed Maewen and offered her some canvas and charcoal. From then on, Maewen spent her afternoons drawing.

When she was home for the year, Maewen started to spend more time with Mum. She was still as vague as ever, but not so vague that she didn't notice Maewen's new interest in drawing. She started to invite Maewen into her studio more often and Maewen found that her cold winter days were no longer spent in Aunt Liss' barn but wedged cozily between her mum's sculptures.

At fifteen, Aunt Liss had suggested that, if Maewen was going to spend her summer in Kernsburgh, she should at least get a job. So she ended up working alongside Dad's many young ladies. She spent her summer running all over the palace with messages, always stopping to look at the painting of Moril or gazing out at the absurd tomb.

School held little interest for her. She was horrible at every science she tried, she hated math but made good grades in it, and found literature boring. The only subject that Maewen loved was history. Her school was blessed with wonderful, engaging history teachers, and even the eras she had found boring when she was younger became fascinating.

At sixteen, she had a job as her dad's assistant while he researched the political role of singers before the reign of Amil the Great. She didn't get to do much actual research; it was a lot of taking notes and sending messages to a professor in Hannart, but it was interesting, and she spent more time with Dad that summer than she had before.

She had a lot of friends. They were people to go to movies and eat lunch with, but she did not feel particularly close to them. Her friends had noticed her distance from them, and they just said it was part of her dreamy nature. After meeting Mum, they later added that she came by it honestly. When school ended, they all made a promise to write each other from university, and while Maewen wasn't sure if they would stick to it, she appreciated the sentiment all the same.

At seventeen, she was officially employed by Tannoreth Palace, which would, as the nice man in the employment office told her, give her a "leg up" over all her fellow students in the University of Hannart's history department that fall. She was grateful for the job; it gave her a chance to marinate in the musty old stacks for as long as she wanted. She had been given the task of researching the odd project that came up, never anything too big--looking up obscure dates or calling other museums for information-- but enough to make her feel like she was doing real work..

Some days, Maewen would look at documents from the start of Amil the Great's reign to see if she showed up somewhere. It was a futile sort of quest; the closest she ever got were mentions of Tannoreth Palace, and even then, the origin of the name was never recorded. She knew that the chance of seeing her name in one of those dusty books was very, very unlikely, but it didn't stop her from looking.

It was funny how she rationalized that whole situation over the years. A normal person would have thought it had all been a dream. After all, if the Undying really did exist--which they didn't, they were just symbols--why would they fixate on a thirteen year-old girl? Why would they send her to the time just prior to the start of the Great Uprising, to pose as a person no one had heard of, in the company of the boy who would become Amil the Great? It was all very unbelievable. To believe that would be insane.

Maewen would be the first person to admit that it all sounded far-fetched. But that didn't stop her from believing that it had happened. She wasn't crazy, she was just a girl who had spent some time in the past, and that was that. She liked to think that it hadn't really warped her in any way; in fact, it had helped her realize certain things about herself. Working in the palace, studying history, it had made her realize that she was better suited to another time. Maewen didn't obsessively long for it, she just found it much more interesting than her present.

The summer wore on, and Maewen dreaded the end of it. She wasn't scared of university; she liked to think that she was more than academically prepared for it. But just like the end of every summer, she didn't want to leave the comfort of the palace. Spend five summers in a place and it starts to feel like a second home.

And also--and this was the part of Maewen's mind that she was sure was at least a little insane, no matter how much she didn't want to admit it--after this summer, the four years would be up. "Four years, instead of two," Wend had told her. Well, it had been four years. She wasn't sure what she expected to happen, but once those four years were over and she left for university, a chapter of her life would have closed.

Just to see him one last time would be wonderful, she thought, even if nothing happened between them.

Maewen worked on her last day at the palace. Dad had told her that she didn't have to, that they could spend the day together, but she begged off. She would have enough of Aunt Liss' awkward hovering once she got home, and she didn't need it from Dad either. He seemed equally grateful for the out, but did promise to take her out to dinner that night.

Maewen had a slow day at the palace. She had finished her last project a few days before, and with nothing else to do in the last half hour before closing, Maewen grabbed her sketchbook and headed down to where the portraits were. The art students had already begun to clear out, and she soon had the whole room to herself.

Despite her mother's enthusiastic encouragement, Maewen was aware that she was not an amazing artist by any sense of the word. She had yet to figure out how to draw good hands and her charcoal sketches always came out smudged in a way that looked neither artistic nor intentional. But the people looked like who she intended them to be and she assumed that was the best she could hope for.

She went round the room, looking for something to sketch. Moril stared down sadly at her, the false cwidder in the case underneath. Navis looked at her haughtily, imposing as ever. There were other portraits she knew well, of people who came before and later. Finally, she sat down on a bench in front of a long, rectangular canvas wedged between portraits of the third Duke of Kernsburgh and the Adon. Like every other picture, it had the simple white plaque next to it.

This one read "Portrait of Queen Enblith, consort of Amil the Great. Oil on canvas. Date unknown."

It had been donated to the palace two years before, by some descendant who decided that there were better places for it than their dining room. When Maewen had first seen it, she couldn't tear her eyes away. Biffa looked so serene and happy and interesting that Maewen understood right away what Mitt had seen in her. It had been heartbreaking. She had always known that he had married, but she always thought of that as Amil, and not Mitt. But seeing that picture of Biffa made it all more real to her. He had moved on. Maybe she should too. But not until the drive home the next day.

She heard the announcement go out that the museum was closing in ten minutes.

At the moment when everyone should be leaving, someone sat down next to her.

Maewen didn't have to turn her head to see who it was. She knew. Or at least, she hoped so strongly that it turned into knowing. 'Just to see him one last time echoed' in her head.

"I didn't know you drew," he said. The voice was the same, she thought.

"I didn't until a few years ago," she answered, not looking up. Looking up might mean not seeing him, and realizing all those years of denying her possible insanity were in vain. She sketched the line of Biffa's face, the pencil scratching against the paper.

"Interesting choice of subject," he said, and Maewen could tell that he was trying-- and failing pretty miserably, in her opinion--to sound off-hand.

"It was a very big deal when Tannoreth Palace acquired this picture," she said. "It's the only surviving painting of her."

"It's the only painting of her. She didn't like to sit for portraits. And since I refused to, she didn't see why she had to either."

The way he talked, it was like it was only yesterday. But Maewen knew that the frame was old and worn and there were a few cracks in the paint that showed its age. She knew that time wasn't tangible, but she swore she could feel it as he talked.

She moved to look up at Biffa's picture, but she could see him out of the corner of her eye, and that was all the temptation she needed.

He looked the same, she thought and then she realized, not quite the same. He looked older, for one thing. Not as old as that day four years ago, but a little older than her, at least.

Mitt smiled at her nervously. "I was wondering when you were going to look at me."

She didn't answer that. Instead, she looked at the portrait of Biffa again. "Do you miss her?"

"Yes, but it's been such a long time that I'm starting to forget her. I'm forgetting a lot of the people from then." He didn't sound sad, just tired.

"But you remembered me?" Maewen asked. She wasn't sure what sort of answer she was expecting. She just needed to ask it.

"Not always," he said, looking apologetic t, but Maewen didn't think that he really had to; there was a two hundred year gap between their meetings. "I mean, I remembered you, but after a while I couldn't remember your voice, or even what you looked like. Just that nervous freckly look you had."

They both fell silent. Maewen kept drawing, until she asked "Why are you here?"

"I said four years, didn't I?"

Maewen sighed. "That's not quite what I meant."

"Then why did you ask it?" She could tell he was avoiding the question, but he was doing it in a way that reminded her of Hern, and she didn't like it. She wanted him to tell her what he was doing there, sitting next to her, looking at a portrait like they were two normal people in a museum, which they definitely weren't. The portrait was of his dead wife, he was Undying and she had an expiration date. Two expiration dates, really.

"I'm going to the university in Hannart in two weeks," she blurted out. "The one founded by Kialin and Brid's second son."

"I liked him," Mitt smiled, and once again, she was hit by that feeling of time. He had known the man that Maewen had only read about in books and the glossy pamphlet that came with her acceptance letter.

"I also looked at the music college that Moril founded. Not seriously," she added, "I just toured it with my mum one day."

"Do you ever draw him?"

"No. His picture breaks my heart."

Mitt nodded sadly. "He had that effect on people."

"You haven't answered my question yet," Maewen said. Her hands were shaking, just the tiniest bit, making Biffa's hair frizzy.

"You haven't answered mine," he pointed out.

Maewen took a deep breath. "I asked it because I'm leaving for a whole new life in two weeks. Because you didn't just happen to come tour your own palace when it's about to close. Because I think I'm still a little in love with you, even though my dad would have something to say about the two hundred year age difference. Because it sounds cheesy, but I'd like to know what your intentions are."

Mitt gazed at her with his head cocked slightly to the side as though he was examining her. It made her feel uncomfortable and she squirmed in her seat. "Well then," he said finally, "to answer your question, I'm here because I wanted to see you again. And because I think time is going to let us have a chance now."

"Time or the One?" she asked, only joking a little.

"Both," he assured her. "University of Hannart, you said?" Maewen nodded. "I think they might be expecting a new student next term. Maybe I'll study political science. I'd be good at that."

Maewen stared at him, amazed. "You really think that we can just do this, just pick up where we left off a very long time ago? I'm a different person. I draw. I don't ride horses as much as I used to. I'm vague now, that's what Aunt Liss told me last year. And you've united a country and defeated a very nasty evil and had kids and done who knows what else in the last hundred-odd years. And I'm going to die one day, have you thought of that?" From the look on his face, she could tell that he had. "It would be selfish of me to put you through that in return for a few decades together." If she knew exactly what her nervous freckly look was like, she had a feeling that it was what she looked like now. "There's a lot of room for this to go wrong."

"Flaming Ammet," he swore, and Maewen couldn't help but smile at the familiarity of it. "Things will only go wrong if you think about it that hard." He took her hand in his and said, "The point is, I never truly forgot about you in all this time. I know that you're a different person now, but if I've seen anything in the past two centuries, it's that people don't really change. And you are going to die someday. I can't say that I like that idea, but we'll just prepare ourselves for it, won't we? Okay, it probably won't be that easy, but we can try. I don't know about you," he continued, "but I think that we were good together back there on the Green Roads. Maybe we could give a try at being good again."

Maewen looked at him, at his earnest eyes and smile, and then down at their joined hands. Neither of them was wearing the One's ring but it still brought up memories of the past. She remembered holding his hand walking through Hern's old city, fitting that crown over his head, how comfortable she felt around him, even now.

"I want to try," she said, and his smile grew even wider. She held his gaze, smiling too, until she heard someone calling her name.

"Maewen!" She dropped Mitt's hand and hopped off the bench at the sound of her father's voice. The sketchbook tumbled to the ground and echoed in the quiet room.

"There you are," Dad said when he came around the corner. "I thought that we could leave for dinner--oh, who's this?"

Mitt had gotten up to stand behind her. She watched the two of them size one another up, and she just knew from Mitt's eyes that he was looking at her dad and seeing Navis.

"Dad, this is Mitt," she said, still smiling. "He's going to be at the University with me next fall."

 


End file.
